


the ashes, and the chance to start again

by winteryknights (BlackcatNamedlucky)



Series: decide on us [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Episode: s03e15 Eddie Begins, i think the garden is going to end up being a metaphor but that wasn't on purpose, the curtains were just supposed to be blue and i was just supposed to like gardening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackcatNamedlucky/pseuds/winteryknights
Summary: Eddie gets home and everything feels distinctly hollow. It’s a small house, and full of knick-knacks that paint a picture of the family living there, but he feels the weight of its emptiness deep in his gut when he’s there alone. He tries to distract himself by cleaning up around the place, a task that had somewhat fallen to the wayside in the past couple of weeks, that cyclic way that housework has. Really, there are only so many things that one man, with the weight of his world bearing down on his shoulders, can juggle on his own.
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: decide on us [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077251
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	the ashes, and the chance to start again

**Author's Note:**

> while this fic can be read as a standalone, some aspects may make more sense if you read [this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28122537) first.

Eddie wakes first, and the relief is almost as crushing as the emptiness.

He carefully extracts himself from the tangle of limbs and blankets he’d found himself in the night before and sits up, arms wrapped loosely around his knees as he watches the sun rising from the watery horizon. The heavy gray of it gives way to a watercolor display of light yellows and oranges as Eddie tries to focus on anything besides the cacophony of his thoughts— training his ears on the dripping of yesterday’s rain from the gutters, eyes on the gentle way the light caresses the contours of Buck’s shoulders where the blankets Eddie had pulled with him have exposed his bare skin.

(He almost wishes the room were still shrouded in darkness, for in the light it feels wrong to hope, like an act of betrayal to run an absentminded knuckle over the stubble-scratchy line of Buck’s jaw, something akin to a perversion if he dared lay a hand on the other man’s back, to feel the warm skin and solid muscle move with each sleep-heavy breath. A reassurance that he is in the world of the living, accompanied by a suffocating fear of fucking everything up.)

But eventually, the gray haze of his mind must give way to its own mottled colors, its own display, this one an ugly clash of purple and green.

Because he’s home. He’s alive. He made it out. Somehow, he always makes it out.

And for some reason, none of that feels like an accomplishment. He hates to say it, hates the metallic tang of the word on his tongue, the sour aftertaste it leaves—every implication clear, every regret tattooed over his heart—but he can’t help that it feels more like a punishment.

He’d run once, twice, had only stopped running when he’d been beaten to the punch. And now he can’t ever give up, can’t ever let go; the lone soldier trudges ever onward, and he carries the weight of everyone he’s lost, of everyone he owes, and it never seems to be enough. _He_ never seems to be enough.

See, Sisyphus has his stone, and the ire of the gods, and Eddie? Eddie has his family, and the gravity of everything that means, always thinking he’s found them a sanctuary at the top of the mountain only for the cruel winds of fate to push them over the edge again. And sometimes he’s so goddamn tired for it that he can’t even find it in himself to care as he watches everything plunge to the earth below.

He just wants out.

Really, though, he has an out. If only he’d let himself look beyond the shadow-puppet-life he’d been living and see what was right in front of him, what had been right in front of him the whole time. 

(Now shifting and groaning and stretching beneath the sheets next to him as he wakes.)

The problem is that it is so often easier to live through the shadows on the wall than it is to confront those who cast them. It is simpler to accept that life is this way when you have shielded yourself from knowing it in any other.

But, _damn_ , if it isn’t unfulfilling.

Is there not more to life than to hide in the cave of one’s own making, bound by the chains made in the forge of one’s own heart, its fires fueled by the terror of allowing oneself to be free? Surely, there must be.

Surely, in being torn open with all you are on display—the wretched and the wonderful—there is a seedling of a life that, watered with your own blood and tears, will flourish alongside you.

Surely, it can be found in a sleep-graveled “good morning,” uttered by the keeper of the keys to one’s heart. Surely, it can be found in the comfortable silence that follows, pregnant with unvoiced acknowledgment of the events of the night before. Surely, in being known by someone so completely that the mundanities of your life are their own.

The hand-stitched quilt of a routine, known through an intimacy shared by no others, of, “You’ll need to shower and get Chris ready if you don’t want him to be late.”

And so the bruised watercolor of Eddie’s mind is once more painted over with swaths of gold by the sunrise.

He drags himself out of bed, grabs a change of clothes from his dresser, and makes sure Christopher is awake before heading to the bathroom. He strips down and steps into the shower, turning the water as hot as it can go to dissolve the phantom vestiges of cold that still cling to his bones. He loses himself in the static of the water beating against the enameled surface of the tub— the steady monotony is easy to focus on, easy to let numb his thoughts before anything else can overtake them. It helps him shower quickly, methodically, and he’s dressed and out of the bathroom not too long after.

He heads to the kitchen, stopping at Christopher’s room to tell him to shower, and finds Buck leaning with his back against the counter, next to two mugs of coffee and three plates of scrambled eggs. He’s looking at his phone, brow furrowed, but looks up and smiles when Eddie comes in.

“Hey, so I think we’ve got two options for getting your truck from the firehouse,” he says, pocketing his phone and leaning back on his elbows on the countertop. “One, Chimney said he’d be willing to have Maddie drop him off at the firehouse and he could drive it over here, provided I give him a lift back home, or two, we could go together to take Chris to school today and swing by the station on the way back.”

“I’m fine with whatever,” Eddie says, moving around Buck to get utensils.

“Okay, so you’re gonna pick one, because Chim would have to leave in like five minutes.”

Eddie might have closed the silverware drawer harder than necessary at this, because he sees Buck flinch and immediately feels guilty. “I don’t want to put him out,” he says, trying not to let the stress he’s feeling color his tone. “We’ll go together. Do you still take cream in your coffee?”

Buck shrugs, pushing off the counter and turning around to grab the sugar from the cabinet behind him. “Nah. Hey, uh, you have plans for the rest of the day?” he asks, putting the shaker on the table as Eddie sets down the forks he’d grabbed earlier.

“No, uh, not really. Catch up on housework, maybe,” Eddie responds, grabbing two of the plates off the counter and setting them at Christopher and Buck’s spots at the table.

“Oh, yeah, cool,” Buck says, taking the last plate and the two mugs to the table before sitting down.

“What about you? Anything fun planned?”

“Nah, wasn’t really planning on having the day off.”

A silence settles over them, then. Eddie grabs a cup from the drying rack by the sink and fills it with apple juice for Christopher and Buck stirs sugar into his coffee and it should feel like any other morning off after a hard shift.

Except the silence is buzzing with a not-quite-tension, an expectancy floating through the air like cottonwood in spring with its unassuming suffocating quality.

“Stay,” Eddie says, finally, a gasp for air.

“You trying to pawn chores off on me?” Buck responds, a taut thread of mirth running through his tone.

“Might be,” Eddie says, finally sitting down. A pause, then, “And we should probably talk.”

“Yeah, about, uh, last night-” is all Buck gets out before they hear Christopher coming down the hall and he clamps his mouth shut, pulling his coffee mug closer.

* * *

Mercifully, Christopher’s excited ramble about the science project he’s working on fills the remainder of breakfast and the car ride to school, prompted by Buck’s genuine fascination with the topic (something to do with vegetable growing seasons) and Eddie’s clarifying questions. By the end of the ride, Christopher is begging Eddie to build a raised garden bed in their backyard, Buck has broken out the puppy dog eyes and promises to help, and Eddie has never felt more relief at seeing the school’s front doors. 

He helps Christopher out of Buck’s Jeep and gives him a tight hug, one that lingers just on the edge of too long, then waves him off and watches until he’s inside the building before climbing back into the Jeep. He looks out the window at the cars and milling-about children and tries not to think about the fact that he could have not been here today, but the thought crowds his mind, sharp and incessant as radio static.

“So,” Buck starts, carefully making his way through the congested, start-of-the-school-day parking lot, “I was thinking I’d head back to my place to shower after we got your truck, then I could swing by that little cafe Athena likes and get some drinks and a couple sandwiches to put aside for lunch.”

Eddie’s a bit slow on the uptake, his mind taking a moment longer than it should to sort through what Buck’s just said to him, and what it means.

“Oh. Sure,” he says, a beat too late, and misses the sidelong glance that Buck gives him, doesn’t register the worried huff that follows.

“Yeah, you know, I was also thinking I’d stop at CVS, get some pink hair dye, been looking for a change,” Buck says, watching Eddie.

“Mm-hm.”

Buck turns out of the parking lot, then, still watching through the edges of his vision the way that Eddie is staring vacantly out the window, and tries again. “And I mean, might as well go the whole nine yards. Get some makeup, too, start doing drag shows downtown. You think ‘Evangelista’ would be a good name? I bet my grandma would find it funny.”

“Hm.”

Buck sighs, shuts his mouth, and pulls onto the nearest side street. “Okay,” he says, putting the car in park. “What happened in the last ten minutes?”

Eddie drags himself out of his fugue state and looks at Buck, holding his gaze for a long moment before turning back to the window. “I just want to go home, Buck,” he says. “I just want to get this done and go home.”

There must be something in his voice, because Buck doesn’t respond, just starts the car and navigates back to the road.

The rest of the drive is silent.

* * *

Eddie gets home and everything feels distinctly hollow. It’s a small house, and full of knick-knacks that paint a picture of the family living there, but he feels the weight of its emptiness deep in his gut when he’s there alone. He tries to distract himself by cleaning up around the place, a task that had somewhat fallen to the wayside in the past couple of weeks, that cyclic way that housework has. Really, there are only so many things that one man, with the weight of his world bearing down on his shoulders, can juggle on his own. 

Sometimes doing the dishes isn’t one of them, so he starts there. Except, it’s almost too rhythmic. He can’t let his mind drift away like he wants it to, his focus instead shifting to all of the things he’d wanted to push down, all of the things he’d hoped would fade away with time that had only festered. A minefield of open sores, and he’d never really been the type to look down before taking a step. Especially not when he’s braving it alone.

He finds himself doing that more often than not, lately.

_Click._

“My god,” he says to himself, “my _god_ do you have a talent for pushing people away.”

He wonders if his parents were right. Maybe he _would_ drag Christopher down with him, with the habit he’s made of closing himself off to everyone he loves, everyone who’d been willing to put up with all of his shortcomings. He’d left his parents’ home out of, what, spite? Anger? Left Shannon out of fear, let her leave for the same reason. He’d let himself become a man directly antithetical to everything he wanted to be— the kind of man who ran, who didn’t stop to consider how much he was fucking up the people he only wanted to protect, who stood in Death’s path without a thought about it. He wasn’t cut out to be a man people could rely on, how the hell could he be cut out to let himself rely on others?

He absentmindedly grabs a mug from the sink, only noticing when he runs the washcloth over the rim that it’s a cheap novelty mug Buck had given him, only half jokingly, a few days after the earthquake.

_God._ He hadn’t thought of it when he got home, hadn’t thought anything of coming home, alone, to an empty house. But right after he’d told Buck to stay? _God_. He’d started pushing Buck away, too.

He wasn’t going to stay, and why should he? Why would he saddle himself with Eddie and his baggage? After all, he had made it pretty clear that Buck’s attempts at helping him weren’t welcome.

He hadn’t meant to.

The mug slips out of his hand, shattering against the countertop, and Eddie sinks to the floor, sliding against the opposite counter, hands fisted in his hair and elbows propped on his knees. With no one around to see him, he lets himself fall apart again. He cries for Christopher, the mother he lost and the father he almost did, cries for his old life and the version of him that ran away to Afghanistan and died there, cries for the family he’s built here and the love for them that he’s afraid he’ll never be able to express in full. He sobs until his eyes burn and his throat hurts and he finally, _finally_ doesn’t feel empty.

He hardly registers a key turning in the front door, the slight squeak of the hinges as it swings open and soft _snick_ when it closes, and only thinks to look up a few seconds after he hears footsteps in the hall.

And then he sees Buck standing in the doorway, a drink carrier in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, and the hazy memory of their conversation in the car clarifies so suddenly that it feels like a gut punch.

The items are quickly discarded on the counter as Buck hastily makes his way to Eddie, kneeling and carefully picking up the pieces of the mug that fell to the floor. Eddie watches him for a moment, trying to remember how he’s supposed to react.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, quiet, and Buck pauses.

He turns to look at Eddie with a slight shake of his head. “Why?”

What he wants to say is, “I’m scared, I’m scared I’ll make you leave, like I made Shannon leave. I’m scared that I try too hard to be too much and it’s breaking me. I’m scared that one day, I’m going to do something so wrong that you’ll decide none of this has been worth it. That I’ll fuck this up, because I’ve never known the right way to do these things. I’m scared that you’ll never know how I feel, you’ll never know how you’ve been family to me for so long, but I’m scared to tell you, too, because I don’t want to ruin what we have. And I’m sorry, because that means I don’t trust you as much as I should, as much as I thought I did.”

What he said instead comes out in fragments, in “I-” and “I didn’t mean-” and “I wasn’t trying to-”, until Buck lays his free hand on Eddie’s arm and it stops him cold.

“Eddie,” he says, a mask of evenness in his tone, “whatever it is, you can fix it. I can help you fix it, just, take your time. Tell me what’s wrong.”

So he takes a deep breath, studies the pattern of the floor tiles, and says, “I’m scared.”

The next time is quieter, “I’m scared you’ll realize how exhausting I make things, when I’m too damn proud to admit that I’m wrong, or too damn stubborn to admit when I need help,” he takes a breath again, “I’m scared of losing you,” he says, “and I’m scared of how much I need you. Of how important you’ve become to my life, to _Chris’_ life. And I don’t want you to leave us.”

“Eddie, what are you saying?” Buck asks, and if it weren’t for the blood rushing in his ears, Eddie would have been able to hear the tremor of hopefulness in his voice.

The answer, of course, is a truth that requires his ribcage to be torn open to allow the daylight to burn away the shadows of his heart.

He thinks, absently, that his blood looks beautiful on Buck’s hands.

“I love you,” he says, numbly, “and I’m sorry.”

There’s a quiet moment between them, then. Buck shifts to put the broken pottery in his hand on the countertop above Eddie’s head, and Eddie can’t stop thinking that the next thing he’s going to do is walk out the door.

He doesn’t.

He lowers himself into a sitting position in front of Eddie, crossing his legs in a way that can’t be comfortable but is all that is allowed to him in the cramped space of Eddie’s kitchen, and takes Eddie’s hands in his, running his thumbs over the ridges of Eddie’s knuckles.

“Why are you sorry for that?” Buck asks, and it’s gentle, and afraid, and Eddie wants to cry again.

“Because I know how hard I make it to love me.”

Of course he knows. It’s by design.

Buck huffs out a mirthless laugh. “Well, maybe we’re both just a little too hard to love,” he says, “But I’m pretty sure we’re also both a little too stubborn to stop trying.” He waits for Eddie to respond, but he doesn’t, so he carries forth. “I know it’s a lot, and I’m afraid too, but I also know that we’re good together, Eddie.” He lets out a shaky breath. “We’re good together, whatever that means, so I just need you to know that nothing has to change. Not right now, not ever. I told you, day one, I’ll have your back, and I meant it. So if you want this, if you want _us_ , to change, I’ll be right there with you, but if that’s too much, I understand. And if you want to just play it by ear, take it one day at a time, and maybe not try to figure everything out the day after you almost died, I’ll be there with you for that too.”

Eddie looks up, slowly, and meets Buck’s eyes, so sincere it’s almost painful. “One day at a time,” he echoes, and Buck nods, so Eddie does too.

One day at a time. He can do that.

**Author's Note:**

> I somehow wrote the last thousand words of this on my phone and while half-asleep and only had to do minimal edits to that part, so that's fun. anyways! this has been a long time in the making and I'm quite proud of what I have so far, so I hope you enjoy it!  
> I can't promise any sort of update schedule, but I can promise that I know where the story is going and am excited to finish it. not least because I spent three and a half hours today researching the specificities of gardening in los angeles for it when I live in Michigan...  
> you can find me on tumblr at [the-sneering-menagerie](https://the-sneering-menagerie.tumblr.com)  
> as always, kudos and comments make my day :)


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